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Vote of the week: What are you doing for New Year's Eve?

By Robert Niles
Published: December 30, 2010 at 3:23 PM
What are your plans for celebrating New Year's Eve this year? (Or, if you are reading this on Jan. 1 or later, what did you do?)

Will you be among the crowds packing Disneyland, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, or Universal's CityWalk?

Will you be in Times Square in New York, or on the Strip in Las Vegas?

Will you be celebrating with family or friends at someone's party?

Will you be at home, watching the ball drop on TV?

Or, will you be asleep?

Me? I'll likely be in bed, with the alarm set for a pre-dawn trek up Colorado Boulevard to cover the 2011 Rose Parade. But if the crowd waiting out along the parade route is loud enough, the cheers and firecrackers might wake me up again this year.

Back in the day, though, I spent plenty of New Year's Eves at Walt Disney World, with flashlight in hand, engaged in a futile effort to keep traffic moving around the hub inside the Magic Kingdom. Eventually, we just settled in with the crowd to enjoy the fireworks conflagration. After, we would try to direct the throng toward backstage pathways, as alternate escape routes from the park. It was only an illusion of progress for the guests, though, as even-longer queues at the monorail station and ferryboat dock awaited them once they emerged from the park.


Please tell us about your favorite New Year's celebration, in the comments. And thanks, again, for such a great 2010 at Theme Park Insider!

Readers' Opinions

From Samantha McCrae on December 31, 2010 at 5:35 AM
I'm working! - 4pm till 1.30am :( sucks - so i couldnt vote for any of them :P
From Jeremy Samples on December 31, 2010 at 11:17 AM
I'll be at Universal Orlando's CityWalk at their New Year's Eve Party with Bret Michaels. Not going to take much of a chance on rides today, while I may try to get into the parks to see the shows. Took advantage of later park hours last night and hit SpiderMan, Hulk, Doom, Dueling Dragons, and Forbidden Journey in 1 hour. But, Universal CityWalk is where I will be tonight!
From Joshua Counsil on December 31, 2010 at 12:33 PM
We're throwing a party in our apartment. Our college buddies that we graduated with last year are coming from all over.

Happy New Year.

From 166.137.11.187 on December 31, 2010 at 1:01 PM
I was planning on going to universal studios for universal 360 but, I'm gonna wait till next year to do that. I will be at home with family watching the ball drop and drinking ButterBeer and rootbeer floats.
From Hermione Potter on December 31, 2010 at 1:41 PM
I'm lucky enough to live in Orlando 15 mins from universal/seaworld area and 30 from disney. So i will be staying home but climbing up on the roof to watch the sky explode 360 around the house. XD
**Tip for any visitors to the area - park on the roof of the universal parking garage around 11pm and sit and wait the hour. You can see disney fireworks as well as everyone else's and then be the first people out and get a head start on traffic. :)
From Frank Forrester on January 1, 2011 at 10:16 AM
I went to Epcot which was packed, but fun. Since Hollywood Studios had EMH till 3am I walked over there from Epcot and was glad I did. Most resort guest had left and The Osborne Lights street was basically empty and around 2am the wait time for Toy Story was under 5 min.
From Roxanne Price on January 1, 2011 at 8:05 PM
Had planned on staying at Disney World during Christmas, but family crisis pushed it to New Years. Then kiddos got a stomach virus and we're now pushing it to the end of January. BTW, Disney Reservations has some fantastic customer service. Despite the fact that I was a gibbering idiot on the phone and having to push the reservations twice, they were completely cheerful, professional, and sympathetic.

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